The diet of the Indian Flying Fox Pteropus giganteus ( Brünnich . 1782 ) ( Chiroptera : Pteropodidae ) in Myanmar-conflicts with local people ?

Pteropus) eat a wide range of flowers, fruits and leaves (Lobova et al. 2009; Fleming & Kress 2011). Although their protein requirements are met by digestion of pollen and leaves (Long & Racey 2007; Kunz & Ingalls 1994, respectively), the energy to power flight is provided mainly by sugars in fruits (Thomas 1984). The diet of the Indian Flying Fox Pteropus giganteus (Brünnich. 1782) (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) in Myanmar conflicts with local people?

Some studies have suggested that the clearance of land for agriculture has led to a loss of bat's natural foraging habitat and food plants and as a result they feed on commercial fruits (Aziz et al. in press).This often leads to conflict between bats and those who pick and market the fruits.There is little published information on the diet of flying foxes in Myanmar.The aims of this paper are to describe the diet of the commonest flying fox species in the country, P. giganteus and to assess the likelihood of its dietary habits leading to conflict with local people.

Methods
This study was carried out over two years (2004)(2005)

Results
The study species was confirmed as P. giganteus by netting two individuals on the flight path between a roost and the foraging areas (Images 1 & 2).The total number of bats counted at all three roosts during the present study was 1005 in 2003-2004 and 1513 in 2004-2005.

Food resources
Pteropus giganteus fed on the fruits of 24 plant species, the leaves of three species and the flowers of six species (Tables 1 and 2).The dominant families in the fruits eaten by P. giganteus were Moraceae (four species) and Myrtaceae (three species).Of the leaves and flowers consumed by the bats, the dominant family was Bombacaceae (two species).This was followed by leaves of Mimosaceae, and flowers of Bignoniaceae, Asteraceae, Caesalpiniaceae and Lauraceae.
Fruits of three species, namely Ficus rumphii, Carica papaya and Morinda angustifolia were available to bats throughout the year.Other plant species that had a long fruiting season were Ziziphus jujuba, Ricinus communis, Psidium guajava and Ficus racemosa (Table 1).Mangifera indica was found abundantly in the study area and was a dominant food source for P.giganteus in the months of April, May, June and July, which was the major local fruiting season.

Characteristics of food resources
Pteropus giganteus consumed fruits of a variety of different colours (Table 3).However, the majority of fruits observed in this study were yellow and green.All leaves were green.Six floral food resources were white, yellow and red.
Fruit species except M. angustifolia did not produce an odour strong enough for the tree to be detected by a human observer in the field (Table 3).However, most of the fruits consumed by bats had a pleasant odour when they were held close to the observer's nose.All the flowers eaten by bats also had a pleasant fragrance.
Of all the food plants, four were small trees, three were shrubs and the remainder were larger trees (Table 3).Flowering and fruiting frequencies did not correlate with rainfall (Pearson's correlation coefficient).

Feeding behaviour
Fruits predominated in the diets of bats throughout the year (Table 1) and leaves and floral parts of plants formed only a small proportion of the diet (Table 2).Soft fruits were either totally or partially consumed.At one foraging site (Taunginn Village), the fruit pulp of M. indica was consumed totally and the pericarp was spat out onto the ground.The bare seed was left attached to the tree by its stalk.However, it was quite common for some fruits of this species to be dropped under the tree with a little bite mark.Bats visited these mangoes in Taunginn Village and other fruiting trees near their roosts as long as they remained productive.When there were large numbers of fruits in the trees, groups of five or six bats came to them, although the number of visiting bats dwindled to one or two by the end of the fruiting season.Most bats made several flights to individual trees during the fruiting season when the village was quiet at night.Villagers believed that the bats seemed to know whether the fruits were ripe or not.If M. indica fruits were marked with tooth scratches, they become ripe the following day, and the bats ate only ripe and  over-ripe fruit.
In the Ye Chan foraging site, the bats consumed all the pulp of Calophyllum inophyllum fruit and clean round seeds were observed on the ground beneath the tree during October, 2005.In April 2004, black guano containing rough fibres was encountered under the study tree (Bombax ceiba) in Taunginn Village although the fruit responsible could not be determined.In Shwe Done Village, other partially eaten fruits such as Psidium guajava and F. racemosa were observed under a F. nervosa tree.Seedlings of Nauclea orientalis and P. guajava were also found under the roost tree in Taunginn Village.Chewed leaves and flowers whose soluble contents had been extracted by the bats were collected under the day roosts.Moreover, guano with different colours reflecting the colour of the fruit pulp consumed and different coloured ejecta pellets were also found each day under the bats' roost.

Attitude of villagers
The bat roosts had been present in the villages for as long as local people could remember, although numbers fluctuated from year to year.The villagers had a positive attitude towards the bats and no conflicts were apparent.

Discussion and Conclusion
Of the 24 species of fruits eaten by flying foxes, 13 were also eaten by local people, and of these, only three were sold in local markets-guava, mango and tamarind (Tamarindus indica).Two species (Morinda angustifolia and Azadirachta indica) were used in traditional medicine and one (Ceiba pentandra -the source of kapok) was used to stuff pillows.
In many countries the extent to which flying foxes eat fruit which is harvested and sold leads to conflict between bats and those picking and marketing the fruit.This often results in persecution of the bats (Aziz et al. in press).In the two years of this study, there has been no indication that such a conflict exists and villagers reported no conflict in previous years either.In the study area in Myanmar, a few of the fruits which the bats eat are sold commercially, and the superabundance of mangoes means that local people tolerate the fact that bats eat some of them and damage others.
In an experimental study, Andrianaivoarivelo et al. (2012) showed that Rousettus madagascariensis preferred the fruits of native plants to introduced commercial species.In the present study most plants in the diet of P. giganteus were native, and this together with the fact that there was little local marketing of species in the diet of bats may explain the absence of conflict between the bats and local people.